54 



JOURNAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER 



[ July 17, 1866. 



water. The result is, that they are all thriving, and I have 

 not had one case of gapes this season. 



I am convinced that poultry properly attended to is not 

 only a pleasure to keep, but a source of no small profit, 

 though, by-the-by, I do not think I shall purchase so many 

 eggs next year. I have a small orchard, about half an acre, 

 which I divided in two parts, keeping one exclusively for 

 chickens. — An Eighteen-months Amateur, S. Devon. 



NOTES ON BIRDS OF PREY IN ESSEX.— No. 1. 



A Royal Eagle was shot about twenty years ago in Takeley 

 Forest, and I remember one being shot at Waltham Abbey, in 

 the marshes. 



Tlte Osprey or Fishing Eagle. — A very fine one once lived 

 for two or three years about Latton and Nettleswell. I have 

 sometimes been very near to it. I do not know what became 

 of it at last. One has since been shot at Pishiobury. 



Kites formerly existed at Great Parndon ; they used to breed 

 in Parndon woods, but they are all destroyed. 



The Moor Buzzard. — There used to be a tract of boggy ground, 

 with several woods, extending from Latton Mill to Burnt Mill, 

 and I have there seen this rare bird twice or thrice, but have 

 not known it to continue there. 



Common Buzzards were so frequent that I have seen them 

 alight on the barn at the place where I lived, and they were 

 almost continually to be seen sailing over the meadows. They 

 used to breed in Latton and Nettleswell woods. Not one now 

 remains. 



Goss Hawks used to breed in Hyde Hall wood. 



The Sparrow Hawk. — This active and interesting bird is now 

 very seldom seen; but at one time it was frequent. If the 

 farmers execrate the sparrows they should preserve this Hawk, 

 as its food consists almost exclusively of sparrows. 



The Lanner. — I once sawthis large Hawk in Hyde Hall wood, 

 and I have seen it both in Harlow and Latton Park woods, but 

 it has always been very rare. 



The Peregrine Falcon. — This has been shot in Stanstead 

 Marsh and in Gilston Park, and I have seen it in Epping 

 Forest. 



The Kestrel, or Hovering Hawk. — This beautiful and inter- 

 esting little bird used to enliven the country by its pretty hover- 

 ing and its plaintive note ; but it is now nearly exterminated 

 by the game-keepers, although it does not meddle with any kind 

 of game. No bird is of greater service to the farmer, for if 

 mice are not exclusively its food they are very nearly so. It 

 enters barns and other outbuildings, where not too pubiic, in the 

 same manner as owls ; and wherever this bird's nest used to be 

 found (generally in the old nest of a crow or magpie), it was 

 invariably lined with the skins of mice. In spite, however, of 

 all its services and its beauty, it has gone — been destroyed by 

 the keepers. 



The Hobby. — This small Hawk was more rare than either of 

 the preceding, and appeared to prey mostly on the larger in- 

 sects, as it was generally seen hawking round trees or dart- 

 ing very rapidly along. It also kept itself more secluded in 

 woods. 



The Merlin, the smallest of the native Hawks, is very rare, 

 and is said to be migratory, arriving in this country in October ; 

 but a nest with two young ones was once taken in Ongar Park 

 Wood, and I had the care of one of the young birds for some 

 months. One, a few years since, chased a sparrow into a 

 greenhouse, at Sheering, and was caught, and of course was 

 killed by the ignorant fellow who caught it. 



The above are all the species of the Falcon tribe with which 

 I am acquainted. — D. S. French. 



[The foregoing are a portion of a few pages of MS. (we wish 

 they were many more), written by an old man long resident on 

 the western borders of Essex, who, though slightly educated, 

 was a good botanist and ornithologist. They are the mere 

 records of his own observations, yet are very interesting, and 

 are all that remain of their author's writings. He has recently 

 died.] 



Tavistock Poultry Show. — The Committee have done wisely 

 to alter their first proposal — namely, that exhibitors were to 

 find their own pens. The Committee will find the pens, 

 charging Gd. for each ; but there are no entry-fees. The Com- 

 mittee will be obliged by the loan of ornamental poultry or 

 birds not intended for competition. 



BEES DYING OF DYSENTERY. 



All the bees in one of my hives are dying, and I should be 

 very much obliged if you could tell me what to do with them. 

 It is a May swarm which was taken in a straw hive, and which 

 I afterwards chloroformed and put into an Ayrshire wooden 

 hive. The weather was very wet at the time, and the hive got 

 wet and mouldy inside. I brought them into the house, took 

 out the slides, put a piece of gauze on the top so as to venti- 

 late them, and gave them some barley sugar. After a couple 

 of days the bees seemed all right, and I put the hive out again. 

 This was between three and four weeks ago. They are now 

 dying by hundreds, and the rest seem to be listlessly hanging 

 together doing nothing. Yesterday I removed them to a clean 

 floor-board, taking away all the dead, and to-day the floor-board 

 is again covered with dead, also the ground in front of the hive. 

 Where each one dies there is a large drop of stuff the colour of 

 yellow ochre, some of which I enclose in a leaf. 



Can you suggest any reason for their dying, or anything to 

 do with them 'I Can there be anything poisonous in the ordinary 

 barley sugar sold in shops ? I was surprised also to see a lot of 

 earwigs in the hive. How is it the bees allow them ?— G. Thur- 

 low, Buckland, near Dover. 



[Your bees appear to be suffering from dysentery arising pro- 

 bably in the first instance from the injurious effects of chloro- 

 form, and aggravated by their being subsequently fed whilst 

 confined to their hive. There is nothing poisonous in ordinary 

 barley sugar. If the present glorious weather fails to ame- 

 liorate the disease, we should very much fear that it is incurable. 

 Have you made trial of the remedy to which you referred, and 

 of which you spoke so favourably in page 282 of our eighth 

 volume?] 



LIGURIANS IN STAFFORDSHIRE— BEES AS 

 REGICIDES. 



All the young Ligurian queens I reared last season (nine in 

 number) lived safely through the winter, and in every instance, 

 although several must have been rendered fertile by black 

 drones, all their progeny are beautifully-marked Italians. I 

 saw the original queen this morning, and she still seems to be 

 in full vigour, and has filled her hive with a vast deal of brood. 



Dr. Bevan observes that storified hives seldom swarm. My 

 experience is, that with Italian bees, they almost invariably 

 swarm, in spite of every precaution. 



I have this season adopted the plan recommended by "A 

 Renfrewshire Bee-keeper" — i.e., a super with guide combs 

 has first been placed over the stock, and in a few days (after 

 the bees have fairly entered, and commenced to work), a 

 nadir has been placed under the stock hive. A second shallow 

 super was in due course placed over the first super, and in a 

 few days a second nadir under the stock, and finally a third 

 addition was made to the super ; but in spite of all this accom- 

 modation, before the first super was completed a vast swarm 

 issued forth on Sunday last (June 24th), and out of four hives 

 similarly treated only one has abstained from swarming. 



A curious case of swarming occurred the day before yesterday 

 (June 2fi). A fortnight ago I made a swarm by removing the 

 queen and a large portion of the bees from a frame hive, and 

 putting them into an ordinary cottager's hive furnished with 

 ernpty comb. A frame containing two or three nearly mature 

 royal cells was inserted into the stock, and one of these duly 

 produced a queen, and I considered the hive secure from swarm- 

 ing, having removed all the native royal cells a day or two after 

 the Italian cells had been introduced. 



On the 26th of June, however, the hive swarmed at about 

 10 a.m., the bees remained quiet after being hived until about 

 4 o'clock, when they seemed to have lost their queen. (I had 

 in the meantime examined the stock carefully, and failed to 

 find either queen or tenanted royal cell, and did not think they 

 had a queen). I turned up the hive in which the swarm had 

 been hived, and soon espied a deadly knot of regicides. I took 

 them out and pulled off the assailants one by one, until I had 

 released the queen ; but as she was a very small one, and was 

 a good deal misshapen about the abdomen (the result, I be- 

 lieve, of the murderous attack she had experienced), I at once 

 crushed her, and allowed the bees to return home ; this they 

 did almost at once, showing that no second queen had accom- 

 panied the swarm. I believe the queen was impregnated ; she 

 was nine or ten days old. 



Yesterday (June 27th) I found that a swarm had issued from 



